Mothers’ Use of Inferential Language and Preschoolers’ Narrative Comprehension

OSU Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Grant recipient, 2013, Lima Undergraduate Research Forum, awarded 3rd Place, 2012, OSU-Lima Psychology Area Award recipient, 2012, OSU Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Scholarship recipient, 2012, Psychology Department Conference Travel Grant for Chicago MPA, 2014The purpose of the current study is to examine mothers’ inferential language during a shared book-reading activity and their preschoolers’ later vocabulary, story comprehension and spontaneous production of inferences in a 6-month longitudinal study. All extratextual utterances were coded according to 4 levels of abstraction, which organized utterances by literal and inferential language. Inferential language was further coded into categories to examine the possibility that the type of inferences mothers make (e.g., causal) predict children’s inferences within the same task as well as children’s independent production of inferences. Results showed that mother’s inferences correlate with children’s story comprehension. Children’s story comprehension also correlated with their own vocabulary scores. Mother’s open-ended questions correlate with children’s elaborative responses and mother’s closed questions correlate with children’s yes/no responses during shared book reading. Additionally, all categories of inferences were significantly correlated between the mother and her child during shared reading. However, mothers’ inference categories did not predict children’s later inference categories made on their own. Mother’s use of inferential language predicted preschoolers’ vocabulary 6 months later and her use of level 2 language about character actions was correlated to her child’s. Understanding how parent-child interactions are related to preschoolers’ story comprehension has practical implications, considering the relationship between inference making and later reading comprehension skills.No embargoAcademic Major: Education - Early Childhood EducationAcademic Major: Psycholog